Buchanan County supervisors have tentatively agreed to provide $3.4 million to help keep the Appalachian School of Law afloat.
The county board had previously been asked to consider providing $6 million to the small private school.
Supervisors voted 5-2 Thursday night to approve the funding agreement, following a two-and-a-half-hour closed meeting to consult with the county attorney.
Returning to open session, Supervisor Trey Adkins — who was recently appointed to the law school’s board of trustees — moved to provide $3.4 million to the county Industrial Development Authority to help boost the school’s struggling finances.
The deal would become final upon approval by the IDA and the law school board. If approved, the first half of the money would be distributed in early March. The law school would be required to provide audit, tax and other financial documentation.
David Western, president and dean of the law school, in December told supervisors that although the school had reduced its budget deficit since he took over leadership in 2023, ASL needed about $2.5 million to remain open through spring 2026. For it to survive longer-term, it would need funds closer to $10 million.
ASL has 184 students and needs 300 to be sustainable, he said at the time.
Adkins said he wants to help preserve 41 jobs at the law school, of which 22 are held by Buchanan County natives. He noted that the presence of the law school helps support several other local businesses, including retail stores and housing for students and staff.
Contrary to some community perceptions, the money is not “going to rich people,” Adkins said. It’s crucial to the survival of Grundy, the county seat, he asserted.
The IDA would “tear their arm off” to spend $3.4 million for the sake of 22 good jobs in the county, Adkins declared.
But Supervisor Craig Stiltner said the law school’s problems come down to simple math: If an enterprise loses keeps losing money, a bank won’t approve a loan. Stiltner said he wants to see the law school secure more donations instead of asking for county funds.
The law school got a loan from the Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority, but it was not paid back, Stiltner noted. He complained that the law school has been reluctant to provide financial documents to the county without signing a non-disclosure agreement.
In a Friday email, VCEDA Executive Director and General Counsel Jonathan Belcher explained that the authority — which serves the counties of Buchanan, Dickenson, Lee, Russell, Scott, Tazewell and Wise and the city of Norton — loaned $6 million to the Buchanan County IDA in 2016 to purchase a law library building from the law school. The first $4 million was distributed that year, with additional $1 million payments in 2017 and 2018. The loan was forgiven in 2022 at the IDA’s request, and the building was returned to the law school.
Loan forgiveness was tied to the law school meeting annual expectations for enrollment and maintaining accreditation, Belcher said.
Following Stiltner’s comments at the Thursday meeting, Supervisor Roger Rife — a former law school trustee — said he would vote to give the school “one more chance,” but he predicted the county would end up raising taxes as a result.
Rife noted that the county’s current fiscal-year budget is nearly $59 million, serving a population of about 20,000 people; 10 years ago, a $42 million budget served about 34,000 county residents. Meanwhile, a lot of real estate has been taken off the county’s tax rolls because of chronic flooding damage, he said.
“What we’re creating is going to come back to bite us,” Rife predicted.
Adkins said the law school has existed nearly 30 years and, for 19 years, had asked the county only for small funding amounts toward building maintenance.
He noted that there has been discussion of merging the law school with Roanoke College and asked: If the law school is a bad thing, as some people believe, why would Roanoke want it?
Cardinal News requested additional information Friday from county administration regarding the funding source for the $3.4 million grant and what would be required of the school to qualify for the funds.
The county administrator’s office declined to answer those questions and several others, saying in an email that “FOIA [the Freedom of Information Act] does not require Federal Agencies to answer questions, render opinions, or provide subjective evaluations. Requesters must ask for existing records.”
It is not clear why the email cited “Federal Agencies.” A follow-up email to the county administrator’s office with additional questions about Thursday’s meeting received no reply.
At this time, it is unclear when the IDA will consider the proposal.
Western on Friday declined to discuss the specifics of the county’s funding offer.
He noted in an email that enrollment is trending upward, “and we are encouraged by the strength of our incoming and returning classes.”
The school is “actively engaged in responsible fiscal oversight, donor cultivation, and broader development efforts to ensure both short-term stability and long-term sustainability” and is pursuing additional funding through private philanthropy, alumni giving and foundation partnerships, he said. “We appreciate the candid feedback expressed by local leaders and share the goal of ensuring the school’s long-term strength and accountability.”
The law school was founded in the mid-1990s in part to boost the county’s economy, which had traditionally been the most dependent of any Virginia locality on coal mining. As coal mining and employment have declined over the last three decades, Buchanan County has struggled to replace those jobs. The county’s steep-slope topography has stifled efforts to recruit manufacturing firms or other entities requiring a large land footprint. Creation of the Appalachian College of Pharmacy in 2003 was another outside-the-box effort to generate economic activity.